All you need is love: 50 years later, we’re still infatuated with The Beatles

For The Beatles, fame in America was not a long and winding road.

On Feb. 9, 1964, Beatlemania hit the United States with full force.

That’s the night the Fab Four, with their Edwardian suits and mop top haircuts, made their first American television appearance – live – on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

Millions of parents surely wanted to scream “Help!”, but millions more adoring teens – a record 74 million viewers – tuned in to see what all the fuss was about. The band’s song, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” had already hit No. 1, boys were already wearing Beatles wigs and screaming girls were everywhere the group appeared.

The band would play three other times on the Sullivan show over the next year with a quarter of a billion – yes, billion – people watching, still considered per population percentage the most highly-viewed regularly-broadcast shows of all time.

Something in the way they moved struck a chord and for the next six and a half years, the intense fan frenzy (which sparked the term, Beatlemania) would continue. The band stopped performing live in 1966 but continued to sell records at a phenomenal rate.

Starting with the “I Want to Hold Your Hand” single on the Billboard Hot 100 and ending with the “Let It Be” LP, The Beatles had the No. 1 single in the U.S. for a total of 59 weeks and topped the LP charts for 116 weeks. Translated: They had the top-selling single one out of every six weeks and the top-selling album one out of every three weeks.

With each successive, groundbreaking LP, the Fab Four stretched themselves lyrically, musically and individually, creating a Revolution in music, fashion, movies … taking pop culture itself on a Magical Mystery Tour. The Lennon-McCartney singer-songwriter combination would set a standard for creativity that has never been matched – and likely never will be again.

As the 50th anniversary nears of that first Sullivan show, we invited readers to share their memories. Let it be said their passion for John, Paul, George and Ringo hasn’t dimmed any with time.

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We moved to Farmer in 1978 when I was about 7 and I started first grade there. I was learning to read at school. My mom has this record player that’s like a piece of furniture with all these old records in it. One side is for the records and the other side has the turntable and a radio.

For some reason she never kept the album sleeves so I was going through them one day reading the labels. I came across a Beatles record and I said, “Mama, does this say The Beatles?”

She said, “Yeah, you should listen to that, you’d probably like it.”

Well, I loved it! She had “Meet The Beatles” and “The Beatles IV.” I would play those two records over and over and over while I rode my bike under the carport on my little Raggedy Ann record player. My best friend lived across the street from me and as soon as school got out, that is what we did. Played the Beatles and either roller skated or rode bikes to the Beatles! After a while my dad decided I needed a new one to listen to and bought me “The Beatles Rock N Roll Music Volume one.”

I loved it, too, so I ended up with all The Beatles records.

When John Lennon was murdered I got more interested in them as people after seeing all the people so upset on TV over him. I wanted pictures, books and anything else so I could learn about them.

When I graduated college my grandmother took me to England. It was a lifelong dream. We stayed in London so I bought a train ticket to go to Liverpool. We took the Magical Mystery Tour and the bus looked just like the one on the movie. The BBC was there filming our tour and they would say, “OK, when you get off the bus wave to the camera.”

So once they told us to sing “Yellow Submarine” all together on the bus. So we did. Everyone except my Grandma. When we finished singing I said, “Grandma, why didn’t you sing?”

She said, “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life!”

I said, “Why?!”

She said, “My granddaughter on that tacky bus singing at the top of her lungs that she lives in a Yellow Submarine!”

I laughed and laughed. It’s one of my favorite memories.

I’ve seen Paul in concert four times with my best friend (yes, we are still best friends) and Ringo once. I still have one dream left. To meet a Beatle. I can’t wait.

I also have a white Lab named Abbey Rose (after Abbey Road) and the black lab I had before was Sgt Pepper.

– Shannon Yates, Asheboro

There will never be a group like The Beatles.

I was born in Philadelphia, and in the summer of 1964 our family moved to the suburbs. From the moment I heard the sound of The Beatles, I, like many other Baby Boomers, flipped out at the new sound of the Fab Four.

On my birthday in mid-August, my parents gave me a card in which were two tickets to see The Beatles in concert. What a way to celebrate my 12th birthday.

My dad drove to Philadelphia with me on Sept. 2 and you couldn’t hear a thing for all the screaming. On top of that, we were seated on the top level, way in the back.

My dad told me to try screaming and maybe I would hear them better. That did no good. Dad then suggested that I could try to run down to the stage and possibly hear them better. I took his advice and, being much smaller than I am now, I wiggled my way through all the other girls until I was only three deep from John (who was my favorite from Day 1) and George. When John turned his head my way, I shouted, “John, I love you!” He smiled and winked at me!

On our way out, Dad bought me one 8-by-10-inch, signed color photo of each Beatle for only 50 cents each.

For my 50th birthday, Dad once again took me to see another Beatle – this time, it was Paul McCartney.

There will never be another group like The Beatles in our lifetime – one that played their own music and wrote their own songs. They were true geniuses.

– Maureen T. Robbins, Randleman

I was the perfect age of 12 when I saw them on “Ed Sullivan” that February night, and have loved them forever since.

However, as I’ve gotten older, I have realized, that it was only a scant three months after the Kennedy assassination that they appeared on the scene to a still grieving nation, and it was like a breath of fresh air that I think this nation needed at that time.

I’ve been a Beatles’ fan all my life. My children were raised on that, and I think every Christmas or birthday or Mother’s Day for many years, they replaced my LP’s with CD’s of all Beatles albums, and books … I have a whole shelf of every book about them, and that huge Beatles’ Anthology. I really read every page of it. You can’t mess me up much on Beatle trivia. I think “Rubber Soul” was my favorite album. I know that “Let It Be” was recorded before “Abbey Road,” and was mostly acoustical, but was shelved, and later retrieved by Phil Spector and he added all the orchestra stuff to the songs (Think “The Long and Winding Road.”) So, a lot of people think “Let It Be” was the last album because of that. It was just the last one released. And their last public appearance was on top of the Abbey Road building and they sang “Get Back.” I’m sure everyone remembers that.

When John Lennon was killed, and I really mourned that, some idiot wrote a letter to the editor in the Greensboro paper and he said, more or less, good riddance because The Beatles had brought drugs and pot to this country … I was so furious, and wrote a rebuttal, that was published, that The Beatles were introduced to pot for the first time by Bob Dylan when they first came to this country, and didn’t he remember the jazz times of the ’30s??? Duh!

– Vikki Parris, Tabernacle

I’m sitting listening to “The Beatles 1967-1970” as I write this. It involves memories of days long past. I love different eras of The Beatles music for different reasons.

Despite their early live shows, their latter live shows were under-equipped for the venue. They played their songs as recorded but could not be heard for the fan reaction, the screaming.

Maybe being forced from the stage to the studio was the catalyst The Beatles needed. There, they were free to experiment with sound, music, composition, arrangement. Whether drugs influenced or not, their music was pure genius!

1964. I’m 10 years old and not much interested in music. Sure, I’d heard the music that became the “Golden Oldies, “but it didn’t “grab me.” For the most part I didn’t listen to the radio or buy records.

Then came The Beatles. The first time I heard a Beatles song I was a fan. I loved the music, the look, the lyrics, the sound, even the accents. I brought as many of their records/albums as I could, even though Asheboro wasn’t mainstream Beatle friendly. I bought magazines featuring the Fab Four as often as I could.

When the British Invasion hit in 1964 I was ready. I couldn’t wait to see The Beatles live on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” but it wasn’t to be. On that night, either by happenstance or design, we visited next door relatives and, oh no, the TV couldn’t be turned on because they had company.

Anyway, as time passed and Beatlemania grew I wanted to wear my hair like the “mop-top.” No such luck. I always got the “crew-cut” and the gel to keep it up. I didn’t use the gel and let my hair fall over my forehead no matter the length.

I followed The Beatles off and on throughout their career. A lot of their music spoke to me in one way or another. I was saddened by their break-up and waited for the Beatles Reunion that never happened.

Since then I’ve mourned the loss of John Lennon and the passing of George Harrison. I never saw The Beatles in concert, but I did get to take in “A Hard Day’s Night” at the old Carolina Theater on Fayetteville Street in Asheboro.

My youngest daughter, born years after The Beatles, is as big a fan, if not bigger, of The Beatles as I ever was. We did get to see Paul McCartney in concert in Raleigh several years ago.

As close to a Beatles concert as we’ll ever get.

– Neal Moffitt, Coleridge

It was Christmas 1965 and I was 9 years old. Today, the “tragedy” of my favorite Beatle, Paul McCartney, chipping a front tooth makes me laugh, but as a 9-year-old fan, I was devastated.

If memory serves me correctly, he was riding his moped in Liverpool, not paying attention, when he wrecked, his face smacked the pavement and his tooth went through his lip, chipping it and requiring several stitches in his lip. I was spending the night with my older sister’s friend and we started crying as if our world was ending.

Her mother allowed us to make Rice Krispies treats to take our minds off of the tragedy marring handsome Paul’s face. What would he do? As we ate our treats, we wondered if he would have plastic surgery or be scarred for life?

To Paul, it was not a big deal, but in my small world it was. If you ever wondered why The Beatles suddenly started sporting moustaches, wonder no more. To cover up the scar and stitches, Paul grew the moustache he was sporting on the cover of the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album. John, George and Ringo followed suit and the rest is history.

– Judi Brinegar, Ramseur

I was among the 32,164 who gathered for the evening concert at D.C. Stadium in Washington, D.C., to see and hear The Beatles on Aug. 15, 1966, during their final U.S. tour.

There was no problem being able to see the four adorable English musicians on the playing field stage from any vantage point of the stadium. Concert tickets ranged from $3 for the top-most upper deck seats to $5 for lower deck ones. My girlfriends and I had paid $5 for third-base area seating.

There was no dilemma in hearing the music of The Remains (“Diddy Wah Diddy”), Bobby Hebb (“Sunny”), The Cyrkle (“Red Rubber Ball”) and The Ronettes (“Be My Baby”).

But, when The Beatles finally took the stage as 1960s-era cameras flashed, there was a major problem. My personal experience and news accounts, too, attest that one just couldn’t hear.

And why not? It was because of girls screaming in a frenzy when The Beatles appeared and began to sing one of their tunes like “Day Tripper,” “Yesterday,” “I Wanna Be Your Man” and “Nowhere Man.”

I was not one of the screaming maniacs fans (at least I don’t recall it that way).

What I remember vividly from the concert was that I looked at disbelief, with my mouth wide opened in surprise, at my girlfriends who seemed to be the loudest of the screamers, drowning out any remnants of music from the field. The actual presence of The Beatles had transformed my traditionally, mild-mannered friends (we had all been on our high school newspaper staff together and were now in college).

Although I couldn’t hear The Beatles that evening, I rejoiced that I was in their presence.

I was devastated when they broke up four years later … and stunned when John Lennon was killed in 1980. We lost George Harrison in 2001. I’ve been keeping up with Ringo Starr, but I’ll take advantage of any chance today to hear Paul McCartney sing.

– Kathi Keys, Asheboro

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(Help!) I need some answers …

1. How many Grammys did The Beatles win while they were a band?

• A. Five
• B. None
• C. Seven
• D. 25

2. What was their best-selling single worldwide?

• A. “Hey Jude”
• B. “Yesterday”
• C. “Let it Be”
• D. “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

3. Who was the band’s original drummer?

• A. Brian Epstein
• B. Billy Preston
• C. Stu Sutcliffe
• D. Allen Klein

4. Which Beatle crossed Abbey Road first?

• A. John
• B. Paul
• C. George
• D. Ringo

5. What 13-year-old child actor, who would later become a famous drummer/vocalist, was an extra in “A Hard Day’s Night”?

• A. Kurt Russell
• B. Phil Collins
• C. Robert Plant
• D. Steve Tyler

6. Which song is about divorce and stayed at No. 1 on the U.S. charts for nine weeks, a record for any Beatles song.

• A. “Hey Jude”
• B. “Help”
• C. “Cry Baby Cry”
• D. “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”

7. The basic rhythm for “I am a Walrus” was inspired by:

• A. Police siren
• B. Guitar feedback
• C. Hare Krishna chant
• D. Paul singing in the shower

Answers: 1. C; 2. D; 3. C; 4. A; 5. B; 6. A; 7. A.

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Let it be (strange)

• One of the clues people cite as proof Paul McCartney died in a car crash and his fellow Beatles covered it up comes from the song, “I’m so Tired.” When you play the lyrics backwards, it says, “‘Paul is dead.” Also, many people thought that towards the end of “Strawberry Fields” they could hear John Lennon saying, “I buried Paul.” John claims he was saying, “cranberry sauce.”
• Paul’s song, “Yesterday,” voted most popular song of the century by a BBC poll, had music written before the lyrics. Paul used the working title, “scrambled eggs,” while composing the song.
• The “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club” album cover, voted by Rolling Stones magazine as the greatest of all time, showed a crowd of people The Beatles most admired, among them actress Marilyn Monroe, writer Edgar Allan Poe, boxer Sonny Liston, physicist Albert Einstein and occultist Aleister Crowley.
• Many people thought “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was a thinly-veiled reference to LSD, based on the first letters of each word. John said hallucinogenic drugs had nothing to do with the song’s origin. Rather, it was inspired by his son Julian’s nursery school drawing of a classmate.
• “Come Together” originated as a campaign slogan for LSD guru Timothy Leary, who was running for governor of California against Ronald Reagan in the 1970 election.
• Two Beatles songs were transmitted into space, “Across the Universe” in 2008 by NASA and “Good Day Sunshine” in 2005 during a Paul McCartney concert to the International Space Station. “Send my love to the aliens,” Paul added.

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Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da! Who’s No. 1?

Are The Beatles the greatest artists of all time, as Rolling Stone magazine dubbed them? It depends on who you ask. But to get you started, here’s some stats from Billboard’s Hot 100:

• No. 1 album of all time: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with more than 42 million copies sold.
• No. 1 single: Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” with more than 50 million copies sold.
• No. 1 in total record sales: Elvis with 2.5 billion, followed by The Beatles at 2.3 billion.
• Most No. 1 singles: The Beatles with 20.
• Most No. 1 singles in a calendar year: The Beatles, six in 1964 and five in 1965.
• Most cumulative weeks at No. 1: Tie between Elvis and Mariah Carey with 79.
• Most consecutive No. 1 singles: Whitney Houston, seven.
• Most number of songs in the Top 10 at one time: The Beatles, on April 4, 1964, with the top five positions.
• Most No. 1 singles from a single album: Michael Jackson’s “Bad”, Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” (tie), five.
• Most No. 1 singles by a songwriter: Paul McCartney, 32, followed by John Lennon, 26.